What's My Age Again?

11/8/2021

I love birthdays, and not just mine. I love all birthday's because I like any excuse to celebrate. Almost everyone who I've ever met has made their way onto my birthday calendar with an alert so I'm always the first person to say it. I never miss one... and the notes app of my phone is filled with messages for my friends prepared months in advance because sometimes you just think of the right words to say half a year before it's needed. This year I threw a surprise party for every single one of my closest friends. It started as a joke after we planned one for our friend Harrison. As we were setting up, everyone teased about how they expected a surprise party this year as well, and I thought it would be really funny if we actually followed through with it. Of course at this point, everyone knows that they're getting one, they just don't know when- and so far the surprise recipient has been unsuspecting every single time. I've always been this way about birthdays. When I was still in high school, I had a list in my phone of each of my friend's favorite desserts, and I spent more nights than I could keep track of making dozens of heart shaped sugar cookies or vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles and blue icing to bring in on their special day for everyone to celebrate. After I started college, I made a point to still visit all of my old friends on their personal holiday- I'd wake up at 6 on each of their special day's to sneak through the red gates of my old school to bring donuts and coffee to them before class started. I don't brag about many things, but I really am the queen of party planning and birthday celebrations- It's my thing.

In years past, my own birthday's have been filled with beach days, and bright orange sunsets, and waking up to surprise visits from far away friends. They've been spent swimming with manatees and jumping into bright blue water at "private beach" as my friend's had adoringly nicknamed our secret spot. A hurricane was supposed to hit the day after I turned 15, so we had a hurricane party and everyone I love went to the beach to surf, because West Coast only gets those type of waves a few times a year. I've spent every year of my life waiting to turn 18. October 9th 2021 couldn't come quick enough... until it did. This past year slipped away so fast, and the day that I've been looking forward to forever is finally here and I'm so scared. All the days spent waiting to be old enough so that my parents would allow me to go visit my East Coast friends by myself, and wishing to be the age where I could finally move out or stay out as late as I want or get the tattoos I've been looking forward to since I was 14. I can do it all now, yet I'm sitting here writing this, feeling the same wistfulness I feel every year counting down the last few seconds before the ball drops on New Years eve, or the bittersweet feeling of the last day of summer, or the saudade memory of walking past the abandoned corner store that once housed the best surf shop in town. Just trying to grasp onto what was mine so shortly ago. I'm so sentimental, and I know that nothing REALLY changed when the clock turned from 11:59 just an hour or so ago, but I still miss being 17, and being 16, and 15, and 14 even. I miss the year where I spent every single day in a Taylor Swift shirt, and the year that I had an alarm set to make sure I watched the sunset all 365 days, and the years spent with people I no longer know- or those that I know far too well but will never spend another day with despite that. But I realize that all of those phases in my life are still part of me. My favorite thing I've probably ever ever read is a piece by Sandra Cisneros that I think describes growing up in a way better than I have ever heard it explained before.

"What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is."

As for 17, I learned a lot about who I am, and who I want to be. I realized so much about friendships and relationships and everything in between. I learned how quick a boy can go from telling everyone he meets how in love he is with you, to doing everything in his power to hurt you. It taught me how lonely outgrowing your old friends can be, even if you're surrounded by the greatest people you've ever known. I learned how quickly boys who call you family will leave you behind- how easy it is for them to abandon, over something they did to you, and how no one believes until it happens to them. I learned how to live free from the worry of what others think of me, and to let go of the lies convincing me that I was too much or too little. 17 brought me closer to people who make me feel loved every second of every day- it was a year spent swallowed by a love so big that you could physically touch it. During 17, I learned to skate, quit my job, got a better one, visited my dream state, made new friends, watched a whole lot of sunsets, started college, put up some mailboxes, kissed some boys, got a new car, took exactly 20,661 pictures, and grew (as always) an even deeper appreciation for this life I live. Lucky for me, I get to carry all of this along with all I that have accumulated from years prior into 18. Because at 18, I'm also 8 and 12 and 14 all simultaneously. Here's to the next 365 days, and to more time spent doing things that make me happy and leave me feeling fulfilled. Excited to see what it holds in it's promising hands for me.

ALSOOO HEYYY it's November 8th and I forgot to post this

on my birthday, but since I never did, I'm gonna tell you guys about my birthday parties because it was the best birthday week I've ever had and I feel so thankful every time I think about it. BAAAASICALLY, on my actual birthday I always go to the beach with my fam and close friends. I'm a big fan of tradition, so as always, the evening of October 9th was spent dancing under the crescent moon at my favorite west coast haven. It was so special because almost every single person who I wanted to be there was able to make it, and so many people who I didn't expect to see made appearances too- which was the best surprise. It was just the happiest, most perfect way to celebrate. Later in the week, we went up to Weeki Wachee river for a few days and on the first night, my friends came up and surprised me with THE best party ever. I had been thinking that there was no way I would be caught off guard when they tried to surprise me, but they got me so good, I was genuinely so shocked. And it was so special- everything was pink and orange and we spent the night listening to T Swift and eating banana pudding out of plastic cups. ANNNND then, as the grand finale for the week, me and my friends stayed at a airbnb next to the beach for a few days and spent the weekend in matching "buc-ees" swimsuits, cuddled within sand covered hugs, and drinking bluephoria flavored yerba mates. It really was the best week and I felt so loved throughout the whole thing. I am so grateful.